Brian Slattery Photo
Rituals of Mine.
Carried away by the music, singer Terra Lopez of Rituals of Mine leapt off the stage while drummer Adam Pierce held down the beat. She began howling into the microphone, a caterwaul that sounded like pain but also catharsis. As her voice grew and grew, she pulled the microphone farther from her mouth until, to the astonishment of all around her, she was soaring over the drums, filling all of Cafe Nine with just the power of her voice.
The Sacramento, California-based duo were the middle of an emotion-laden night at Cafe Nine that also featured the New Haven-based Mooncha and Phat Astronaut, making for a night of intense highs and lows that drew a crowd and kept them there until the end.
Mooncha took the stage at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night with a smile on her face. “I make beats on my phone and then perform them in small New Haven cafes,” she said, winning over the growing crowd in an instant. “Y’all want to come closer? I brushed my teeth for y’all. Come get this Colgate.” Laughing, the crowd moved closer. Mooncha dropped one of her beats, and in a breath, the amiable, joking young woman onstage was replaced by a dynamo of nervous energy, more than the stage could contain. She hopped to the door. She mingled with the crowd. She jumped back onto the stage and kept going, spitting rhymes and delivering new and old songs with equal style and flair. She warmed up the stage as well as any opener could.
Next up was Rituals of Mine, doing a show in New Haven as a brief detour during a tour opening for Garbage that was taking them across the Northeast and beyond. Mooncha had set the tone for emotional openness; now Rituals of Mine dug deeper. Backed by programmed electronic tracks, Pierce’s precision and ferocity on the drums kicked things into high gear from the start, creating a tense, moody atmosphere that gave Lopez plenty to work with. She prowled the stage and, in time, the entire floor of the club, getting up close and personal with everyone there. But her main instrument to connect with the crowd was her voice — strong and fearless even at a whisper, but never quiet for long. She mentioned that she was self-taught; she taught herself well. She knew how to use a microphone but didn’t need one. Halfway through Rituals of Mine’s set the bar was full and stayed that way.
Phat Astronaut — Chad Browne-Springer on vocals, Ruth Onyirimba on harmony vocals, Mike Russo on bass, Stephen Gritz King on keys, Travis Hall on drums, Dylan McDonnell on flute and saxophone, and Mark Lyon on guitar — has only deepened and refined its sound since its inception in 2016, and on Wednesday night, in front of a crowd already energized and ready for more, the band showed what it could do. It pulled its emotion straight from the rhythm, starting with Hall’s and Russo’s groove and swing, proceeding through Lyon’s and King’s expert rhythmic and textural work and McDonnell’s melodic flourishes, and culminating in Browne-Springer’s direct and passionate delivery, with lush and dynamic accompaniment by Onyirimba. The band breathed as one, and the audience breathed with it. To the crowd’s delight, for a few minutes Browne-Springer ceded the microphone to MCs Ceschi and Sketch Tha Cataclysm, who had come to see the show and ended up with a little piece of the stage. But the set really belonged to the band, which took the energy higher and higher, cheered by an audience that just didn’t seem to want to go home.
During her set, Lopez told the crowd that every time she visits Connecticut, “my heart breaks a little.” She’d played basketball as a kid and idolized the UCONN women’s basketball team, but she didn’t get in, and didn’t get to play — and turned to music instead.
“If you don’t want to see me heartbroken,” she said, “I want all of your energy for our very last song. to see every one of you moving, because we’re alive right now and it’s really beautiful, and I want to celebrate that fact.” The audience did too.